Mobile Payment Magazine

Payfone and Mobile Accord Partner for Mobile Donation Channel

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Payfone, a leading mobile payment processing service, and Mobile Accord, an innovator and leader in mobile technology for nonprofit organizations, today announced a strategic partnership to expand the mobile donation channel for nonprofits and non-governmental entities worldwide. Through the partnership, nonprofits will be able to expand the power and reach of mobile donation offerings through alternative payment options allowing donations in real-time from any device, such as PC, smartphone, tablet or Wi-Fi, via Mobile Accord’s mobile giving platform, mGive.

“As the premier provider of mobile giving, it is absolutely critical we offer the nonprofit community a secure technology platform that ensures real-time delivery of safe, secure donations with accurate reporting and visibility into all transactions,” said Nim Patel, CEO of Mobile Accord. “Our goal is to offer donors across the globe the ability to make charitable donations from any device at any time. Through our partnership with Payfone, we are able to continue delivering on that promise.”

Mobile Accord’s mGive platform empowers individuals and entire countries to facilitate change using its revolutionary scalable services including mobile giving. mGive has been the standard for mobile giving since 2008, resulting in over 7,000 nonprofit mobile campaigns worldwide and is the platform of choice for high-volume campaigns like fundraising for relief efforts in Haiti and Japan, raising over $46 million in donations. Mobile Accord continues to work with nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations to enhance mobile fundraising and engagement for social good.

“Through Mobile Accord and mGive, its state-of-the-art mobile giving technology platform that is specifically targeted to support nonprofits, we can offer nonprofits one of the most robust and secure methods of conducting donations from any device – an industry first,” said Rodger Desai, chief executive officer, Payfone. “We are pleased to be working with the leader in mobile giving, and look forward to delivering an entirely new method of mobile donation that offers greater ease, flexibility and security, while opening up the global opportunities around philanthropic giving.”

Payfone is unique in leveraging the existing assets of mobile operators for directly connected payment authorization and processing. This approach distinguishes Payfone from other competitors. Payfone’s unique IP focuses on delivering the best user experience, while closely managing fraud using new factors of authentication that are inherent in the mobile operator networks. This translates into one of the most secure and frictionless user experience, across any device. Payfone’s ability to directly integrate with the operator’s network and intelligently identify a subscriber’s profile, makes it the only company capable of securely streamlining the entire mobile payments process.

Mobile Money: CBN grants full license to United Bank of Africa’s U-Mo

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The apex financial regulatory agency in Nigeria, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Thursday August 18, 2011 granted UBA the final license to operate a mobile payment service known as U-Mo.  The company, which was among the 7 licenses granted by the CBN had earlier been granted approval-in-principle by the apex bank last year, enabling the UBA Group to quickly deploy and commence full operations with the establishment of Afripay; its mobile banking subsidiary.

Speaking shortly after receiving the license in Abuja, Dr. Yinka Adedeji, Chief Executive Officer, Afripay, commended the CBN for its efforts in promoting cashless economy through mobile payment platforms that guarantees easiness and efficiency. According to him the granting of final license to Afri-Pay is a demonstration of technical, security, financial and business readiness .

“We are greatly encouraged by this development. It is a significant morale booster given that we have been ready for full operations since November, 2010. Various categories of customers including the banked and un-banked have begun to embrace our services,” Dr. Adedeji said.  With a view to ensuring that all customer segments are covered by U-Mo, Dr Adedeji said Afripay has introduced a number of products including U-Mo Silver, U-Mo Gold and U-Mo Platimum.

“U-Mo Silver is for customers with very little information and it allows them to spend or pay up to N3,000.00 per transaction and up to N30,000.00 per day whilst U-Mo Gold is for customers with contact information and details. A U-Mo Gold customer is allowed to spend or pay up to N10,000.00 per transaction and up to N100,000.00 per day” he explained. U-Mo Platinum is for the more sophisticated customers who are allowed to spend or pay up to N100,000.00 per transaction and up to N1,000,000.00 per day. He said “to qualify for U-Mo Platinum you have to provide detailed information including a verified address and a reference”

Responding to enquiries on the features of U-Mo, the Afripay boss revealed that U-Mo provides higher level of security than cards, given that you require four-digit Personal Identification Number (PIN) and possession of your mobile phone to perform any operation. Dr. Adedeji said that U-Mo Mobile money is available to all mobile subscribers irrespective of their mobile service provider i.e Glo, Etisalat, MTN, Airtel, etc just as it is available for those with or without bank accounts in UBA.

United Bank for Africa (UBA) is a leading Pan African financial services Group, with presence in 19 African countries, New York, London and Paris. Headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria; UBA provides broad-based financial services to over seven (7) million customers across Africa.

“Apart from helping to bank the un-banked, we envisage that a lot of merchants in Nigeria will migrate to cashless payments using their mobile phones to complement the Point of Sales (POS) terminals” said Mr. Phillips Oduoza, GMD/CEO UBA.

Source: UBA Group

Chinese Company B.Shark to Extend Mobile Payment Offering to Physical Goods

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Years ago, operator billing was only applied for value-added services such as ringtones, ring back tones, wallpaper, news, music, and the like. Later it was applied to other fields such as mobile games, game tools and the mobile application market. Now, operator billing is extending to more and more fields, including physical goods payments. B.Shark, a Chinese company offering worldwide mobile payment solutions, now plans to extend its offerings to physical goods payment.

Operators are concerned about being a communication/data channel only, so some operators are reducing operator revenue share, especially reducing their own revenue share when it comes to physical goods payments. That is to say, when customers pay for physical goods via operator billing, merchants will receive a higher revenue share than for virtual goods. This strategy will increase the competitive power of operators when competing with banks.

“B.Shark will launch a physical goods payment solution with the cooperation of an overseas e-commerce platform,” according to the marketing director of B.Shark.

Other mobile payment companies, such as Paypal, Boku and Zong, are also planning to cooperate with e-commerce platforms in the field of physical goods payments.

Source: B.Shark

Telefónica Germany, Telekom and Vodafone Plan “Mpass” Mobile Payment Company

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Telefónica Germany, Telekom and Vodafone are pushing ahead with their joint activities in mobile payments. The three telecommunications providers intend to register their payment service mpass as a separate company, and have signed a letter of understanding to this effect. The new company is due to begin operating as early as this year.

More and more customers are taking advantage of convenient and secure payment via mobile or stationary internet from a mobile phone. Once the mobile payment scheme mpass is up and running, the three telecommunications providers plan to expand on their position in mobile payment. The new company will concentrate on stepping up distribution and marketing activities, as well as developing new products. Aided by new technologies such as Near Field Communication (NFC), users will soon be able to make simple, secure and wireless payments in high-street shops, too.

“Payment by mobile phone will increasingly feature in our daily lives,” says Michiel van Eldik, Managing Director of Wholesale & Partner Management at Telefónica Germany. “It has actually been possible for several years. And the first NFC smartphones, with full functionality for all aspects of credit and bonus cards, are already in the stores. I think that even as early as next year, consumers will be leaving their credit cards at home and paying by mobile phone instead.”

“Queues at supermarket checkouts will soon be a thing of the past,” says Christian Illek, Director of Marketing at Telekom Deutschland, adding: “mpass will make mobile payment easier, faster and more secure than with conventional payment means. Within the mpass partnership we are not only applying the specific benefits of mobile phones in the payment market, but, more importantly, we are bundling our customer reach with that of our partners.”

Dr. Peter Walz, Member of the Management Board and Director of Wholesale & Strategy at Vodafone Deutschland: “For many years now we have offered an interoperable payment product across all networks with payments via the phone bill. This is now being continued in the shared mpass activities. Retailers want standardised solutions and that is what we are giving them with mpass.”

mpass is the mobile payment service of Telefónica Germany, Telekom and Vodafone. The service enables secure mobile and soon contactless payment for mobile phone users of all Germany’s networks. What is especially interesting is that sensitive customer data such as bank details are not sent to the trader as part of the purchase process. The payment order can only be authorised from the buyer’s mobile phone.

Source: Telefónica Germany

Google Acquisition of Motorola Mobility May Speed Mobile Payment Plans

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With Google’s announcement of its agreement to acquire Motorola Mobility Holdings, the search giant has potentially turbocharged its mobile payment plans.

Where before, the Google Wallet was only set up to work with the Sprint Nexus S phone (most other telecom providers have joined the ISIS mobile payment consortium), now Google will be able to design, manufacture and distribute its own phones, presumably with Google Wallet software and mobile payment technology preloaded
[Read more…]

Fortumo Selects Payfone for Direct Mobile Billing

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Payfone, a leading mobile payment processing service, and Fortumo, a leading provider of mobile payments, today announced that Fortumo has selected Payfone to power the direct billing option for its in-app purchasing SDK. This direct billing mobile payment method offers better reliability and higher security as well as better payouts for developers. Through the partnership, Fortumo’s clients will be able to provide consumers with the ability to make safe and secure mobile payments in real-time from any device, such as PC, smartphone, tablet or Wi-Fi.

“We are excited to work with Payfone because of their deep integration with mobile operators’ billing systems,” said Rain Rannu, co-founder of Fortumo. “This in turn will allow us to continue to provide the highest converting in-app purchasing with more payment options for our clients.”

Payfone’s Mobile Commerce Service is directly integrated into the mobile operator’s network, which provides the ability to intelligently identify a consumer’s profile in the system and offers true payment authorization and authentication. Payfone’s Device DNA authenticates the consumer across a wide variety of parameters during the transaction, ensuring they get exactly what they paid for. By pairing the Device DNA to each transaction, Payfone is able determine if a transaction is from a lost or stolen mobile device or if the owner of the mobile account has changed. This translates into one of the most secure and frictionless user experiences, across any device.

Fortumo’s in-app purchasing SDK for Android is the preferred international monetization tool for some of the most popular mobile game and app developers. Payment is done in a single click with no login or registration required. Fortumo’s in-app purchasing library supports both direct mobile operator billing and premium SMS, automatically selecting the best option depending on country, operator and user. It comes with built-in support for consumable and non-consumable items and virtual currencies. Fortumo’s in-app purchasing SDK is available in 61 countries, 22 languages and 42 currencies for any developer for free at http://fortumo.com/in-app-payments

“We are pleased to be working with Fortumo to provide their clients with the most robust in-app mobile payments solution on the market,” said Rodger Desai, chief executive officer, Payfone. “With this partnership, Payfone’s technology will be leveraged for some of the largest mobile payment implementations worldwide.”

Source: PR Newswire

Self Service Customer Service via Mobile

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Brian Day, product development architect for The Members Group (TMG) says it’s time for financial institutions to rethink they way they service customers – understanding that today’s consumer increasingly values self service over traditional customer service.

This shift in customer preference, Day says, has elevated the importance of products like mobile banking for community-based financial institutions.“Making time for chit-chat is not a priority for Generation Y, nor even Gen X and their parents, the Boomers,” writes Day in a recent white paper, entitled “Self Service as Customer Service.” “We are a busy, mobile society, and we expect our financial institutions to stay in stride.” Aside from consumer banking preferences, Day explores the top five mobile banking activities, as well as what he calls the “mobile banking triple play.”

The triple play refers to the three methods of accessing mobile banking – namely text, browser and application. Day also provides an analysis of the benefits mobile banking provides financial institutions, sharing customer service cost figures on a per-engagement level.

Read more: “Self Service as Customer Service” white paper.

Source: TMG

Verizon To Integrate American Express’ Payments on Mobile Phones And Tablets

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American Express and Verizon Wireless today announced they will integrate Serve, a next-generation digital payment and commerce platform, on many Verizon mobile phones and tablets. Over the coming months, Verizon Wireless customers will be able to establish Serve accounts that will enable them to make payments and redeem offers for goods and services directly from their mobile phones and tablets using Serve.

Serve simplifies the online checkout experience by authenticating a mobile number, then allowing a customer to make a purchase on-screen. Verizon Wireless customers who use Serve can expect to buy goods and services on their mobile phone in just a few clicks. Merchants who accept Serve mobile payments will enjoy a streamlined option for processing and settlement. The Serve card is currently accepted by the millions of merchants in the United States who accept American Express.

American Express and Verizon Wireless will also collaborate to source, distribute and simplify redemption of online and mobile offers with participating merchants through the use of the Serve account. For example, as customers redeem certain offers or coupons using their mobile phones, the credit may automatically appear in their Serve account.

The two companies are also working with Payfone to support Serve checkout on Verizon Wireless devices. Payfone’s pre-authorization and intelligent routing features will help Verizon Wireless customers who use the Serve application make mobile payments simply and securely.

“Our collaboration with Verizon highlights the speed at which Serve is evolving to reach a wide audience,” said Dan Schulman, group president, Enterprise Growth, American Express. “Verizon Wireless customers will soon be able to complement their busy lifestyle with a trusted payment platform that delivers a fast, flexible and secure way to manage their day-to-day mobile purchases, and together we’re taking the necessary steps to make mobile commerce a reality.”

Greg Haller, president, Enterprise & Government for Verizon Wireless, said, “Serve provides a quick and intuitive way for our customers to use their mobile service in a refreshingly convenient way. Our commitment to building the entire mobile payments ecosystem, through our Isis joint venture and now with Serve, gives customers incredible new ways to use their mobile devices.”

Source: Verizon Wireless

Google Wallet and Retail NFC Mobile Payments Ignite Buzz, Says ABI Research

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Recent developments in contactless payment technology are generating renewed interest, and suggest that the long-delayed dream of comprehensive contactless payment systems may finally be approaching reality. The introduction of Google Wallet and the expectation that several new NFC-enabled smartphones will reach consumer markets soon have created a sense of optimism.

According to ABI Research, in 2010 only about 10% of total POS terminal shipments included some form of contactless technology. While the analyst firm does not agree with some of the wilder media predictions for contactless POS growth – for example that within 12 months, one third of all terminals in the US will accept contactless payments – it does forecast that 85% of terminals shipped worldwide will be contactless-enabled in 2016, driven by increased proliferation of contactless cards and especially, rapid adoption of NFC-enabled cell phones.

Senior analyst Craig Foster comments, “Contactless has the potential to change the way we pay for goods completely, significantly reducing time spent queuing at the point of sale. It also represents an almost perfect fit for the vending industry, because:

  • The increased speed and simplicity of check-out go hand-in-hand with the very essence of the vending machine – to provide goods quickly and conveniently;
  • The fact that small-value transactions – typically under $25 in the US – do not need to be authenticated by signature or PIN entry is very appealing to vending machine operators.”

M2M practice director Sam Lucero adds, “Contactless technology is also in the very early stages of adoption in ATMs: rather than inserting the card, a customer waves it in front of the machine and enters a PIN.”

Ingenico, VeriFone, and Hypercom are the three leading vendors of POS terminals and command most of the market. VeriFone recently completed the acquisition of Hypercom after satisfying the antitrust concerns of the US Department of Justice. Contactless terminals have formed an increasingly significant part of Ingenico’s portfolio in recent years, accounting for a claimed 21% of the company’s shipments in 2010.

ABI Research’s “Cellular-enabled POS Terminals, ATMs, and Vending Machines” study examines the overall market opportunity for each segment, with a particular focus on value chains, competitive landscapes, market adoption drivers and inhibitors, and technology issues.

ABI Research provides in-depth analysis and quantitative forecasting of trends in global connectivity and other emerging technologies. From offices in North America, Europe and Asia, ABI Research’s worldwide team of experts advises thousands of decision makers through 40+ research and advisory services. Est. 1990.

Source: ABI Research

T-Mobile’s Mobile Payment Plan Risky, Says Consumer Group

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Earlier this month, T-Mobile announced that it will soon launch a new service that will enable its customers to purchase digital content using their smartphone, PC, or tablet and bill it to their phone accounts. T-Mobile’s announcement is just the latest development in emerging mobile payment services that raises concerns about whether consumers will be protected from fraud or merchant mistakes, according to Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports.

“Mobile payment products promise a new, convenient way to pay but consumers could end up losing money if something goes wrong with their transaction,” said Michelle Jun, Senior Attorney for Consumers Union. “Consumers need to be protected in the event of a billing error or if the goods they order aren’t as promised or if they become victims of fraud. Mobile payment services like the one being launched by T-Mobile could put consumers at risk and fail to provide the protections they deserve.”

Read more, via Consumers Union.